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The Snowman
The Snowman is an animated television film based on Raymond Briggs' 1978 picture book The Snowman. It was directed by Dianne Jackson for the British public service Channel 4. It was first shown on 26 December 1982, and was an immediate success. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and won a BAFTA TV Award. It can be featured in the 2006 DVD. The story is told through pictures, action and music, scored by Howard Blake, and is wordless, with the exception of the central song "Walking in the Air". The orchestral score was performed in the film by the Sinfonia of London and the song was performed by Peter Auty, a St. Paul's Cathedral choirboy. The special ranks #71 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, a list drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, based on a vote by industry professionals. It was voted #4 in UKTV Gold's Greatest TV Christmas Moments. It came third in Channel 4's poll of 100 Greatest Christmas Moments in 2004. Its broadcast, usually on Christmas Eve, has become an annual festive event. Plot "I remember that winter, because it brought the heaviest snow I'd ever seen. Snow had fallen steadily all night long, and in the morning, I woke in a room filled with light and silence. The whole world seemed to be held in a dream-like stillness. It was magical day, and it was on that day I made The Snowman." - Raymond Briggs in the original introduction to the film. After a night of heavy snowfall, a boy named James wakes up and plays in the snow, eventually building a large snowman. At the stroke of midnight, he sneaks downstairs to find the snowman magically comes to life. James shows the snowman around his house, playing with appliances, toys and other bric-a-brac, all while keeping quiet not to to wake James' parents. The two find a sheeted-down motorcycle in the house's garden and go for a ride in the woods. Its engine starts to melt the snowman and he cools off in the garage freezer. Seeing a picture of the arctic on a packet in the freezer, the snowman is agitated and takes the boy in hand, running through the garden until they take flight. They fly over the South Downs towards the coast, seeing the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Place Pier, and north along the coast of Norway. They continue through an artic landscape and into the aurora borealis. They land in a snow-covered forest where they join a party of snowmen. They eventually meet Father Christmas along with his reindeer; he gives the boy a card and a scarf with a snowmen pattern. The snowmen returns home with James before the sun rises. The following morning, James wakes up to find that the snowman has melted, leaving only his hat, scarf, coal buttons and tangerine in a pile of snow. Reaching into his dressing-gown pocket, James finds the scarf he received from Father Christmas. Category:Shorts